History of X-ray optics

In the history of physics, X-rays are a quite recent discovery. Shortly after Conrad Röntgen had detected the first human made "X-Strahlen", X-rays where used for medical imaging purposes. Since then the number of applications and methods using X-rays have increased tremendously. The table below will give a short time table of the history of X-ray optics.

Date

Event

Names correlated

Where?

27.3.1845

Birth of Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen in Remscheid-Lennep

Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen

Remscheid-Lennep, Germany

5.11.1895

Discovery of X-rays in the late evening of Friday, 8. November 1895 in the former "Physikalischen Institut der Universität Würzburg". W. C. Röntgen called them "X-Strahlen".

First public talk of W. C. Röntgen invited by the "Physikalisch-medizinische Gesellschaft Würzburg" (physical-medical association) on "Über eine neue Art von Strahlen" (On a New Kind of Rays). At this convention the famous anatomist and privy councillor Rudolf Albert von Koelliker suggested to call X-rays "Roentgenstrahlen" (the term used in german language today).

In cooperation with the US Naval Research Laboratories, North American Philips develops the world's first commercial X-ray diffractometer, which is branded Norelco, soon to be followed by the well-known Philips PW1050 diffractometer.

1952

Hans Wolter designes an aplanatic system of grazing incidence mirrors satisfying the Abbe sine condition (i.e. free of both spherical aberration and coma) used in Wolter telescopes

Hans Wolter

1957-1970

Development of first prototypes of computer tomographs

Allan M. Cormack, Godfrey Hounsfield, A. Sasov et al

Tufts University, Massachusetts, USA; Hayes, UK; Moscow

1963

First rocket-borne telescope takes X-ray pictures of the sun.

John V. Lindsay et al

NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

1970-89?

Launch of the PW1400 family of XRF spectrometers, rapidly becoming the standard in the industry

1971

First computer tomographic image of a human

Godfrey Hounsfield

early 1970's

First orbiting X-ray telescope flies on Skylab and records over 35,000 full-disk images of the sun over a nine month period.

1975

The first successful X-ray image of an extra-solar object is obtained using a Kirkpatrick-Baez mirror coupled with an imaging proportional counter to obtain an image of the Virgo cluster of galaxies.

Paul Gorenstein et al

Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory

1977

First use of Wolter optics for extra-solar astronomy

Saul Rappaport et al

MIT

1978

First orbiting X-ray telescope, the Einstein Observatory

1979

Nobel Prize (medicine) for Allan M. Cormack and Godfrey Hounsfield for the development of computer tomography

Stockholm, Sweden

1983-86

Use of "European Space Agency's X-ray Observatory" (EXOSAT)

1990-99

"Roentgen Satellite" (ROSAT) mission

1993-2001

"Advanced Satellite for Cosmology and Astrophysics" (ASCA): the first satellite using CCD-detectors for X-ray astronomy

1994

First soft X-ray scanning transmission microscope (STXM)

Haddad

1995

Herbert Göbel presents the so called Göbel mirrors at the Denver X-ray conference